Malcolm Cowley
| birth_place = Belsano, Cambria County, Pennsylvania | death_date = March | death_place = | other_names = | nationality = American | period = | occupation = Writer | nationality = American | spouse = | death_cause = | notableworks = | influences = | influenced = | portaldisp = }} Malcolm Cowley (August 28, 1898 - March 27, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic, and journalist. Life Youth Born in Belsano, Cambrian County, in western Pennsylvania, Cowley grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father William was a homeopathic doctor. He graduated from Peabody High School where his friend Kenneth Burke was also a student. He obtained a B.A. from Harvard University in 1920. He interrupted his undergraduate studies to join the American Field Service in France during World War I. From the Western Front he reported on the war for The Pittsburgh Gazette (today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Marriage and family Upon returning to the United States, Cowley married artist Peggy Baird; they were divorced in 1931. His 2nd wife was Muriel Maurer; they had a son, Robert William Cowley, who became an editor and military historian. Life in Paris As one of the dozens of creative literary and artistic figures who migrated during the 1920s to Paris, France and congregated in Montparnasse, Cowley returned to live in France for 3 years, where he worked with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, Gerald and Sara Murphy, Edmund Wilson, Erskine Caldwell, Harry Crosby, Caresse Crosby and others. He is usually regarded as representative of America's Lost Generation. Hemingway removed direct reference to Cowley in a later version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, replacing his name with the description, "that American poet with a pile of saucers in front of him and a stupid look on his potato face talking about the Dada movement".Kenneth Schuyler Lynn, Hemingway, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1995) John Dos Passos's private correspondence revealed the contempt he held for Cowley, but also the care writers took to hide their personal feelings in order to protect their own careers when Cowley became assistant editor of ''The New Republi''c. From his 2 decades of struggling, Cowley (along with Edmund Wilson) later became a well-known chronicler of the expatriate generation. Perhaps the most famous work he wrote was his early book of poetry, Blue Juniata (1929), encouraged by Hart Crane. His most autobiographical was Exile's Return, published in 1934. The latter book is one of the earliest published in the United States about the "Lost Generation", and was reissued in a less radical edition with new material, like his Fitzgerald revivals, in 1951. American literary historian Van Wyck Brooks described it as "an irreplaceable literary record of the most dramatic period in American literary history." Coming under the influence of Theodore Dreiser, Cowley became increasingly involved in radical politics. In 1932 Cowley joined Mary Heaton Vorse, Edmund Wilson and Waldo Frank as union-sponsored observers of the miners' strikes in Kentucky. The men's lives were threatened by the mine owners and Frank was badly beaten up. Cowley began reviewing books during his college days (at $1 each), and edited and contributed to small journals. His biggest impact was from 1929 through 1944, when he was an assistant editor at The New Republic. During this period, as with a number of American writers and artists, he became a radical Marxist and began writing about politics in addition to his many literary productions. Like some of his peers, Cowley came under scrutiny by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. During World War II, he was an information analyst for the Office of Strategic Services. Cowley published Exile's Return in 1933. The book was largely ignored, selling only 800 copies in 12 months. The following year he published an autobiography, The Dream of Golden Mountains (1934). In 1935 Cowley and other left-wing writers established the League of American Writers. Other members included Erskine Caldwell, Archibald MacLeish, Upton Sinclair, Clifford Odets, Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, Carl Van Doren, Waldo Frank, David Ogden Stewart, John Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. Cowley was appointed vice president and over the next few years Cowley was involved in several campaigns, including attempts to persuade the United States government to support the republicans in the Spanish Civil War. However, he resigned in 1940 because he felt the organization was under the control of the American Communist Party. In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Archibald MacLeish as head of the Office of Facts and Figures. MacLeish recruited Cowley as his deputy. This decision soon resulted in right-wing journalists such as Whittaker Chambers and Westbrook Pegler writing articles pointing out Cowley's left-wing past. One member of Congress, Martin Dies of Texas, accused Cowley of having connections to 72 communist or communist-front organizations. MacLeish came under pressure from J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, to sack Cowley. In January 1942, MacLeish replied that the FBI agents needed a course of instruction in history. "Don't you think it would be a good thing if all investigators could be made to understand that Liberalism is not only not a crime but actually the attitude of the President of the United States and the greater part of his Administration?" In March 1942 Cowley, vowing never again to write about politics, resigned from the Office of Facts and Figures. Cowley now became literary adviser to Viking Press. He began to edit the selected works of important American writers. Viking Portable editions by Cowley included Ernest Hemingway (1944), William Faulkner (1946) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1948). In 1949 Cowley returned to the political scene by testifying at the second Alger Hiss trial. His testimony contradicted the main evidence supplied by Whittaker Chambers. As an editorial consultant to Viking Press, he pushed for the publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. In 1946 Cowley edited Viking's edition of The Portable Faulkner, and his introduction is generally considered a turning point in William Faulkner's reputation in the United States at a time when many of his early works were in danger of going out of print. Cowley's work anthologizing 28 Fitzgerald short stories and editing a reissue of Tender is the Night, restructured based on Fitzgerald's notes, both in 1951, were key to reviving Fitzgerald's reputation as well, and his introduction to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, written in the early 1960s, is said to have had a similar effect on Anderson's reputation.Other works of literary and critical importance include Eight More Harvard Poets (1923), A Second Flowering: Works & Days of the Lost Generation (1973), And I Worked at the Writer's Trade (1978), and The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Remembering the 1930s (1980). Cowley published a revised edition of Exile's Return in 1951. This time the book sold much better. He also published The Literary Tradition (1954) and edited a new edition of Leaves of Grass (1959) by Walt Whitman. This was followed by Black Cargoes: A history of the Atlantic slave trade (1962), Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age (1966), Think Back on Us (1967), Collected Poems (1968), Lesson of the Masters (1971) and A Second Flowering (1973). When The Portable Malcolm Cowley was published in 1990, the year after Cowley's death, Michael Rogers wrote in Library Journal: "Though a respected name in hardcore literary circles, in general the late Cowley is one of the unsung heroes of 20th-century American literature. Poet, critic, Boswell of the Lost Generation of which he himself was a member, savior of Faulkner's dwindling reputation, editor of Kerouac's On the Road, discoverer of John Cheever, Cowley knew everybody and wrote about them with sharp insight. . . . . Cowley's writings on the great books are as important as the books themselves . . . . All American literature collections should own this." To the end, Cowley remained a humanitarian in the world of letters. He wrote writer Louise Bogan in 1941, "I'm almost getting pathologically tender-hearted. I have been caused so much pain by reviewers and political allrightniks of several shades of opinion that I don't want to cause pain to anybody."Letter to poet/novelist Louise Bogan, Swann Auction Galleries, Sale 2157: Modern Literature Featuring Americans in Paris. New York, October 16, 2008; private collection. He remained devoted to Hemingway, even as Hemingway's public profile was dropping near the time of Cowley's death. Publications Poetry *''Blue Juniata''. Cape & Smith, 1929 ** revised and expanded as Blue Juniata: Collected poems. Viking, 1968. *''The Dry Season''. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1941. *''Blue Juniata: A life: Collected and new poems''. Viking, 1985. Non-fiction *''Exile's Return: A narrative of ideas'' (literary history). New York: Norton, 1934 ** revised as''Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s''. New York: Viking, 1951. *''The Literary Situation'' (literary history). New York: Viking, 1954. *''Black Cargoes: A history of the Atlantic slave trade, 1518-1865'' (with Daniel Pratt Mannix). New York: Viking, 1962. *''Think Back on Us: A contemporary chronicle of the 1930s'' (literary history; edited and with an introduction by Henry Dan Piper). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. *''A Many-Windowed House: Collected essays on American writers and American writing'' (edited by H.D. Piper). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970. * The Lesson of the Masters (criticism, with Howard Hugo). New York: Scribner, 1971. *''A Second Flowering: Works and days of the Lost Generation'' (literary history). New York: Viking, 1973. *''And I Worked at the Writer's Trade'' (memoirs). New York: Viking, 1978. *''The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Remembering the 1930s'' (memoirs). New York: Viking, 1980. *''The View from Eighty'' (essay). New York: Viking, 1980. *''The Flower and the Leaf'' (selected essays; edited by Donald W. Faulkner). New York: Viking, 1985. *''Unshaken Friend'' (profile of Maxwell Perkins). Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, 1986. *''The Portable Malcolm Cowley,'' (edited by Donald W. Faulkner). New York: Penguin, 1990. *''New England Writers and Writing'' (edited by Donald W. Faulkner). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1996. Translated *Pierre MacOrlan, On Board the Morning Star A.& C. Boni, 1924. *Joseph Delteil, Joan of Arc. Minton, 1926. *(And author of introduction) Paul Valery, Variety. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1927. *(And author of introduction) Marthe Lucie Bibesco, Catherine-Paris. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1928. *M.L. Bibesco, The Green Parrot. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1929. *(And author of introduction) Maurice Barres, The Sacred Hill. Macaulay, 1929. *Raymond Radiguet, The Count's Ball, Norton, 1929. *(And author of introduction) Andre Gide, Imaginary Interviews. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944. Edited *Brantz Mayer, Adventures of an African Slaver; Being a true account of the life of Captain Theodore Canot, trader in gold, ivory & slaves on the coast of Guinea: His own story as told in the year 1854 to Brantz Mayer. New York: Boni, 1928. *(And contributor) After the Genteel Tradition: American writers since 1910. Norton, 1937 ** revised edition, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964. * Books That Changed Our Minds (with Berhard Smith). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1940. *(And author of introduction) The Viking Portable Hemingway, Viking, 1944. * Aragon: Poet of the French Resistance (With Hannah Josephson). Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1945 ** published in UK as Aragon, Poet of Resurgent France. London: Pilot Press, 1946. *(And author of introduction) The Portable Faulkner. New York: Viking, 1946 ** published in UK as The Essential Faulkner. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967. *(And author of introduction and notes) The Portable Hawthorne. New York: Viking, 1948 ** published in UK as Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Selected Works. London: Chatto & Windus, 1971. *(And author of introduction) The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman. (2 volumes), Pellegrini, 1948 ** published with new introduction as The Works of Walt Whitman. (2 volumes), New York: Funk, 1968. *(And author of introduction) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Selection of Twenty-Eight Stories. Scribner, 1951. *(And author of preface) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night: A Romance... with the Author's Final Revisions. Scribner, 1951. *(And author of introduction, with Edmund Wilson) Three Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night (with the Author's Final Revisions), The Last Tycoon. Scribner, 1953. *''Great Tales of the Deep South''. Lion Press, 1955. *''Writers at Work: The "Paris Review" Interviews''. New York: Viking, 1958. *(And author of introduction) Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: The first (1855) edition. New York: Viking, 1959. *Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio. New York: Viking, 1960. *(And author of introduction) Ernest Hemingway, Three Novels. Scribner, 1962. *(And author of introduction) The Bodley Head F. Scott Fitzgerald... Short Stories (2 volumes). London: Bodley Head, 1963. *(With son, Robert Cowley) Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age. Scribner, 1966. *(With Howard Hugo) The Lessons of the Masters: An Anthology of the Novel from Cervantes to Hemingway. Scribner, 1971. Anthologized * Eight More Harvard Poets (edited by S. Foster Damon & Robert Hillyer). New York: Brentano's, 1923. * The Harvard Advocate Anthology, (edited by Donald Hall). Boston: Twayne, 1950. Letters * The Faulkner-Cowley File: Letters and memories, 1944-1962, New York: Viking, 1966 *''The Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Burke and Malcolm Cowley, 1915-1981'' (edited by Paul Jay). New York: Viking, 1988. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Malcolm Cowley 1898-1989, Poetry Foundation, Web, Aug. 25, 2012. Audio / video *''The New World of the New Novels'' (cassette). Los Angeles: Pacifica Foundation, 1959. *''Poets: Saturday night'' (cassette). New York: Jeffrey Norton, 1979. *''Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass'' (CD). Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2009. Except where noted, discoographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Malcom Cowley + audiobook, WorldCat, June 1, 2015. See also * List of U.S. poets * List of literary critics References External links ;Poems *Malcolm Cowley in [[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "Moonrise," "Barn Dance," "Danny" *Malcolm Cowley at the Poetry Foundation ;Books *Malcolm Cowley at Amazon.com ;About * Malcolm Cowley in the Encyclopaedia Britannica *Malcolm Cowley at Spartacus Educational. * ;Etc. *Malcolm Cowley's Childhood Home * Cowley Family Tree * Malcolm Cowley papers at the Newberry Library Category:1898 births Category:1989 deaths Category:American novelists Category:Writers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Harvard University alumni Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets